A/N: So yeah, please read and tell me what you thought! J

That's Just How It Works

When I was a kid, I was in the streets. That was just how it'd been, since I could remember, since before I could remember really. I was in a fight one day, with some Brooklyn guys, and I was loosing. I knew it too, so I was putting what I had left behind my punches and hoping the beating I got'd be a light one once I was down. Then, from pretty much nowhere far as I could tell, there's this guy standing behind the two guys that're whaling on me, and suddenly, they're not whaling on me anymore. Instead, they're getting whaled on. I helped, and boy that felt good.

That kid, the one that helped me, his names Racetrack. At least, that's what everybody calls him. I asked a newsie once what his real name was. Just once. I didn't make that mistake again.

Anyway, so Racetrack brought me to the newsie's lodging house and he and some of the guys taught me to sell a pape. That's how I live now. That's how we all live.

Now for me, being a newsie was an improvement over the way things used to be. I mean, there were beds, a roof, and some sinks - it was like the Waldorf or something if you asked me. But I remember once when we got a new kid from a real nice family.

He was a runaway - his parents didn't do anything to him but he had aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins galore, and quite a few of them didn't like him so much. So he came to the lodging house, and after two days he was shocked.

Like, when a couple of the boys came in after dark beat up but good. We knew they'd run into someone - clearly someone unfriendly - and we cleaned 'em up, and made fun of them (only a little) and let 'em go to bed. But the new kid, he's standing there with his mouth open and he goes, "What happened?". So we told him, because of course it's a pretty normal thing. But he just stands there looking like the sun just rose at night or something. "Well shouldn't we tell somebody?" he asks, and now he's looking all worried.

At first I swear I thought he was joking. I mean, the fact that he thought we should tell someone when a couple of newsies came in a little ragged was laughable to the rest of us. More so, the fact that he thought someone would care. But slowly I realized he meant it. Cowboy realized it too, and he just kind of shook his head.

"Nah. It happens all the time."

It was little things like that.

I took it upon myself to teach him to sell papers. Someone had to. And we went past a couple of little kids on our route one day, snoozing underneath a pile of old newspapers and other trash. And this guy turns to me and says, "Shouldn't they be at home?"

Well I'd learned - we'd all learned - by then that when this guy asked these questions he wasn't joking, he was serious. So I explained it to him, patiently as I could. These kids were home. And he just stared at them. I practically had to drag him away.

It was little things like that. That and a million other little things. Like how we got our breakfast from the nuns every day, or how we "stretched the truth" selling the day's headline, or Race's cigars.

It was little things like that.

He got used to it eventually of course. Everybody always did. Pretty soon he could fight with the best of us, "exaggerate" a headline better than some, was an expert at begging an extra roll from the nuns, and stole Race's cigars along with everybody else. And the next time we had a new kid, he very patiently took him along his paper route and taught him the way things were.

We haven't had a new kid from a nice family in a long time. But every once in a while I think back on that and remember that this life we've got isn't normal for everybody. That the things we do every day, constantly, all the time, you know, the things that are just routine, aren't what everybody does. I dunno.

But that's enough deep thought for one day I think. I'm gonna go play cards with some of the guys.

A/N: Well, let me know what you thought of it!